Learning the Hard Way
by Cassima
Summary: Duo finds out the hard way that you can't always count on your friends. shounen-ai; 5x2.


Learning the Hard Way by Cassima 

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Pairing: 5+2  
  
Disclaimer: ...well, if you have to ask, then yes, I do own them.  
  
Archive: 5x2mlarchive, yeah, I'll send it as soon as I pull myself together. ::slaps herself upside the head:: Anyone else just has to ask.  
  
Warnings: _shounen-ai_, swearing, slightly moralistic (damn it all); has not been beta-ed.  
  
TIMELINE DISCREPANCY: "Endless Waltz" never occurred; the boys have gone  
back to school and are now living in a dormitory.  
  
DEDICATION: For everyone who has found out the hard way that you can't always count on your friends to understand.  
  


* * *

_   
Before criticizing, walk a mile in the other person's shoes. That  
way, if you have something cruel to say, you're a mile away and have  
their shoes._  


* * *

  
  
"Duo, you aren't--are you mad at me?"  
  
"Fuck, yes, I'm mad at you, Heero," Duo spat, shouldering past the other and continuing to stalk down the hallway.  
  
"I don't understand," Heero said, bewildered, grumpy, and hurrying to keep up. "What are you so upset about?"  
  
"You don't even realize you're doing it," Duo muttered, disgusted. "I can't believe this. There are times, Heero, where I have to wonder why the hell I'm friends with you."  
  
"What are you yammering about now?" Heero asked, and stopped Duo's furious walk by grabbing his shoulders and yanking him still.  
  
"Damn you, Heero, I told you something important to me, and you _trivialized_ it. 'That's what they tell everybody.'" Duo pulled out of Heero's grip and started down the stairs, taking them two at a time. "Well, fuck you, this is important to me."  
  
"They _do_ tell everyone that," Heero insisted, once again running to catch up. "Remember that one kid, Matt, in our history class? He kept saying, 'I can't do this. I have ADD, I can't do this.'"  
  
"This isn't the same at all, Yuy," Duo insisted. He pushed the outsidedoor open and left the dorm. "This isn't the same at all, you bastard. Besides, you didn't even ask what my symptoms were. You just immediately trivialized the past 17 years of my life."  
  
"Duo, you don't have a learning disability." Heero sent Duo a condescending look. "You're extremely intelligent."  
  
"What, you think smart people can't have a learning disability? You think only stupid people have ADD? Well, fuck you, Heero, that goes to show how much you know. You know how _hard_ I work in school? You know how many _hours_ it takes me to focus on details? You don't know bullshit, Heero. Weren't you even listening to me when I told you I had problems? You don't even know shit about me, so why don't you go back to your precious physics homework, because I can't take it anymore!" With that note of finality, he ran off into the woods behind the dorm, leaving Heero standing on the cement steps, rolling his eyes. 

  
"What's wrong with Maxwell?" a quiet voice asked him, and Heero turned to see Wufei and Quatre standing at the bottom of the steps, books in hand.  
  
Heero snorted. "That idiot is getting all hysterical because he thinks he has ADD."  
  
"Duo?" Quatre asked with a blink of surprise. 

"It explains a lot, actually," Wufei commented, glancing over towards Duo's retreating back.  
  
"Duo does not have a learning disability," Heero told Wufei coldly. "This is just another one of his attention schemes."  
  
Quatre rubbed his chest a little and frowned. "I'm not so sure," he muttered, but followed Heero back up the stairs into the dormitory.  
  
"You coming, Wufei?" Heero asked when the Chinese ex-pilot didn't move.  
  
"I'm going after Duo," the other replied, and began to trace the path Duo had followed.  
  
"You're just going to make it worse," Heero grumbled.  
  
"Hn," Wufei replied as he walked away.  


* * *

  
Duo sat down against the tree and carefully leaned against it. "What a jackass," he mumbled to himself, and allowed his face to rest in his folded arms.  
  
"Is it true?"  
  
Duo sighed, and didn't lift his face from his arms. "Go away, Wu."  
  
Wufei ignored him, and instead sat down next to him, cross-legged. "Is what Yuy said true?"  
  
"Go away."  
  
"Duo, just answer the question."  
  
"I told you to go away."  
  
"Is it true?"  
  
"I'm not a liar, okay?" Duo snapped. "I don't lie."  
  
"I believe you." Wufei carefully set his books down in the grass. "It always seemed like a very real possibility to me."  
  
"I'm not stupid," Duo whispered, face still hidden.  
  
"I never thought you were," Wufei responded quietly. "You never seemed stupid to me."  
  
"Heero doesn't understand," Duo said, one hand sneaking down to snag his braid. He began to fiddle with the tip, tracing patterns on his knees. "He thinks I--that I do it on purpose. I don't. I never have. I--I just can't help myself."  
  
"I know," Wufei responded. "I'm sorry I was impatient with you."  
  
"He asked why I never stopped talking, and I thought--he's changed so much since the war, and I thought we were friends. I thought he would support me! But he just thinks I'm an idiot."  
  
"Yuy's the idiot," Wufei said, and put his arm around Duo's shoulders.  
  
Duo sighed, and turned his head towards Wufei, still not meeting his eyes. "I told him what the doctor said, and he just said, 'that's what they tell everyone,' like I don't have a problem, and it's something I can control. Like it's something the doctor made up. God, Wu, he thinks I do this on purpose!"  
  
"It's okay." Wufei patted his back.  
  
"No, it's not!" Duo objected. "He thinks everyone can be perfect like him. Wu, he thinks I act like this because I'm lazy and American, and according to him, all Americans are stupid and loud and obnoxious!"  
  
"What does it matter what Yuy thinks? It's diagnosed now; just let it be."  
  
Duo sighed and leaned into Wufei's shoulder, resting his head on it. "I thought he was my friend."  
  
Wufei swallowed, suddenly realizing how close they were. "He is your friend. He just doesn't understand; eventually, he will. Are you going to take medication?"  
  
"I'm going to try it," Duo said. "I don't really want to, but the Doc says it'll help a lot with learning stuff... it's something called 'Concerta'. It's sorta like Ritalin, I guess, but you only take one a day."  
  
"It's a time-release formula," Wufei said with a nod, admiring the way Duo's bangs framed his face. When he inhaled, he could smell the clean smell of Duo's hair. "It makes sense."  
  
"Oy, Wu," Duo said after a moment, turning his head a little to glance up at the other's face. "How do you know so much about this?"  
  
"I was a scholar before the war," Wufei reminded him. "Psychology was only one of the many branches of science I studied. Besides, I know much more about you than Yuy does."  
  
"Oh, yeah?" Duo challenged. "Like what?"  
  
"Well," Wufei said, a trifle smug, "for one, I know that you have ADD..."  
  
Duo found a crooked grin for that, and came across even more good humor when Wufei smiled back. "You're a prize, Wu-man. You know that?"  
  
Wufei snorted. "Last prize, maybe."  
  
"I don't know," Duo said, lifting his head from Wufei's shoulder. Their faces were still close, only a few inches apart. "I think you're pretty special."  
  
Wufei could feel the air tingle as they looked at each other. Duo was so close, his eyes looked like they were glowing with purple fire. They'd had so many of these moments, so close they could almost feel the crackle of electricity from each other's skin. Duo said so much with his eyes, letting his gaze slip along the contours of Wufei's  
face. Wufei raised his hand, the one not around Duo, to his face, tentatively hovering near the pale skin near Duo's cheek.  
  
It was a familiar moment, this flash of tension and attraction. It was hardly the first time. There was the time in the Oz cell when the air was running out and they'd lain there, panting and scared, watching the images of the specs of their improved gundams as they projected from the small device Trowa left, and then again later, after the war, where Duo jumped on him in the corridor, caught up in the glee of the end of  
the fighting. There was that horrible movie they'd gone to see four times, because it was free. There was the picnic at Relena's house, as they'd sat under the trees on the red and white checkered blanket. The time during the school play, when they'd both been working backstage and there was nothing to do but wait, and the blue light on the wall cast a mysterious air around them. The time Duo caught Wufei mourning  
for his wife, offering a calming presence and a friendly touch. The time Quatre threw that party, and they'd shared one tingly dance. The time Duo brought his math homework to Wufei for help. The time Wufei brought his creative writing project to Duo for help. The time they'd gotten together to do a history project under the context of helping each other. The time they'd had chocolate-flavored coffee and watched  
the snow fall, the sound of Quatre playing Pachabel's Canon on the piano in the other room. Two weeks ago, when Duo put on a puppet show of the war that made Wufei fall from his bed in laughter. One week ago, when they were playing cards and suddenly found themselves throwing popcorn at each other.  
  
It was nice, Wufei decided about that first brush of lips. Those moments before, where they'd been interrupted by themselves or someone else, all building towards this moment. They'd been afraid--they must have been, but of what? His hand, still hovering by Duo's head, came to rest finally on his cheek, slipping along the velvety skin to the soft, soft hair.  
  
Duo sighed happily and leaned into the touch before meeting Wufei's lips again in a gentle caress that lasted a bit longer. As they began to shift and draw closer together, mouths moving slowly and a tad tentatively, Wufei couldn't help but pity Heero and his inability to understand. And as Duo's arm slipped around his shoulders to draw him  
in closer, all thoughts of Heero flew out of Wufei's head, and there was only the rush of heat between him and Duo, the wonderful slick sliding of lips and then tongues pressing against each other.   


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